Chapter 26
Indigo
Acid burned my throat as I heaved into the toilet, violent spasms causing my abdomen to clench.
Uncle Roark wasn’t even in the same state, but he’d already managed to bring me to my fucking knees.
It hadn’t even been hard for him. I felt pathetic, weak, and utterly humiliated.
All it had taken to strip my sense of self away and put me right back in my place was Roark casually exposing my deepest, darkest, most shameful hurt to my new family.
I never thought I’d get to a place in life where my secret would matter to anyone but me.
I didn’t have that kind of hope in me back then.
Now? For the first time in my life, I’d started to see a future for myself, a home, and maybe even a certain growly, grumpy biker to love. I should have known better.
Turns out, the worst that could happen was pretty damn bad.
Mikhail and Riordan led me to a conference room, one of only three rooms on this level of The Goldfinch.
Riordan’s home in Nevada was in the penthouse, but the floor below it was also solely used by the Petrov family members.
It housed a second, smaller suite for special guests, an office, and a conference room.
It wasn’t like the church room back in the clubhouse.
That room was built for simple efficiency.
A long table, chairs, and a bar cart… that was about all there was to it.
This room screamed luxury. The wall opposite the door was made up entirely of floor-to-ceiling windows, the Sierra Nevada fading from view as Riordan activated something that tinted the windows dark.
Fancy. A very executive, “important dude” table ran through the room with chairs spaced evenly and tucked neatly under the table.
The far wall was almost entirely made up of a giant glass screen, except for a few feet containing a door that Riordan said was to the en suite bathroom.
It was a modern, minimalist room that made other rooms feel inadequate and bad at business things and money stuff.
It was a room that said, the only thing bigger than my bank account balance is my dick, but in a classy, refined way. Maybe with a foreign accent.
With a few taps from a tablet Riordan had taken from the office, the screen wall lit up and a video conferencing app began loading.
We sat down, Mikhail at the head of the table farthest from the screen, Riordan at his right hand, and I sat to his left.
I had only gotten to swivel around in a circle a few times in what had to be the world’s plushest, most disgustingly comfortable office chair on the face of the planet when Seamus’s call came through.
I swallowed roughly and stopped spinning, my smile fading from my lips.
I was nervous but didn’t want Mikhail or Riordan to know it.
“Chin up, dorogoya. You are entitled to feel how you feel, but you must never let them see it. Guard your emotions because the moment anyone outside your trusted few senses a weakness, they will exploit it. Don’t hand your enemies the tools they need to destroy you.
” Mikhail, the man I was getting to know as my uncle, wasn’t home anymore.
Sitting next to me while the call waited to be connected was the pakhan.
His expression had been wiped clean, and I didn’t recognize the man peeking out of green eyes that had gone flat and foreign.
He sat in his chair, which was comfy and swirly just like mine, like it was a throne.
I wish I knew how he did that, because I was pretty sure I still looked like a chick who wandered in off the street and was considering grand theft chair… not a queen on her office throne.
My cousin mimicked his father, his expression blank save for a hint of arrogant boredom.
Riordan’s mob mask was interesting to see.
It kind of reminded me of the way he looked when he spoke to Astrid…
hmm. What was that about? I folded that thought up into a tidy little square and put it in a pocket in my mind, to be examined later when I had attention to spare.
I focused on my breathing and schooled my face into the most “restful bitch that ever bitched bitchily” mask.
Mikhail gave me a nod, and Riordan connected the call.
Seamus Callahan, boss of the Callahan crime family, filled the screen.
He was built like a linebacker…if that linebacker had gone out to seed and completely let himself go.
Seamus was seated behind a table of his own, his jowly face ruddy and his mousey brown hair thinning a bit on top.
A glass of whiskey made a brief appearance as Seamus took a sip.
“What is it ye want, Mikhail? I don’t appreciate being summoned.
” His words carried the edge of an Irish lilt, having spent much of his life going back and forth between Ireland and the US before he became the boss.
He had the ghost of an accent, like his tongue had murdered the Irish brogue and now its spirit haunted his mouth.
“And I don’t appreciate being lied to,” Mikhail stated in a frosty tone. “The existence of my niece and her imprisonment for over two decades seems to indicate that you know more than you’ve said about my sister’s disappearance.”
Seamus brushed off one of his sleeves, appearing bored.
“I fail to see how that is any of my business. When Tatiana ran off, she disrespected my brother, and she disrespected me. Frankly, I don’t care if the whore is dead or alive, and I have no knowledge of her having a bastard.
Your family drama doesn’t concern the Callahans. ”
Mikhail didn’t even blink at Seamus’s words, but Riordan spoke up in a tight tone.
“If you didn’t have anything to do with her child, why was she raised in your backyard by your brother?
Are you saying that you’re so grossly incompetent and oblivious that you didn’t know Roark Callahan had my cousin in his basement for over twenty years? ”
“You may feel like a big man sittin’ next to your daddy, but nephew or no, I’ll no’ tolerate disrespect, lad.
” Seamus’s words were stern, but his expression looked vaguely nervous.
Like the kind of face someone had when they started to feel a rumbling in their tummy, so they began to look around to see if there was a bathroom nearby…
and there wasn’t. I called that “post-dumpster curry face.”
“Interesting,” Mikhail mused, though he didn’t look interested in what Seamus was saying.
His stoic and cold mob boss mask was firmly in place.
“It seems we have a slightly different opinion on what constitutes disrespect. From where I’m sitting, disrespect looks like covering up the disappearance of my sister.
Disrespect is ‘helping’ us search for her while you knew what really happened to her.
It’s disrespectful to abuse my flesh and blood while profiting from the alliance with my bratva.
Disrespect is having our name in your mouth when you barter with other organizations, using clout you didn’t earn and have no right to. ”
Seamus’s big, bad mob boss mask remained in place, but the resolution on the fancy wall screen was so good we could all see sweat beading on his brow. If I had a tape measure, it’d be fun to measure how large his sweat drops appeared on the HD screen.
“The terms of our alliance—”
“?were null and void the moment Tatiana’s child came to me littered in scars from abuse at your hands.
” Mikhail interrupted. “We may have needed an alliance with you at one time, but this arrangement no longer serves our interests. The Petrov bratva will hereby sever any and all business arrangements with the Callahan family. Any Callahan found in a bratva-owned business will be sent home to you in pieces, and I will be making it my life’s work to dismantle your paltry fiefdom.
The Comhairle na Naoi will be informed of your treachery, so don’t go crying to your brethren for aid.
I highly doubt the other Irish families will thank you for drawing them into a war with the might of the American bratva. ”
Yeah, Seamus was definitely sweating bullets now. “Let’s not be hasty. Surely, amends can be made. We have both profited from our arrangement and can make even more in the future. What can be done to make this right?” My resting bitch mask slipped a teeny bit at his words as I sneered in disgust.
“Pakhan,” Riordan said in a conciliatory tone, “maybe my uncle has a point. If he’d like to make amends, we should at least hear him out.
How would you make this right, Callahan?
” I turned a shocked face to Riordan, the cold snake of betrayal coiling in my gut.
I couldn’t believe that Riordan claimed kinship with that asshole after acting like he hated the entire Callahan clan with the exception of his mother.
“What the fuck?” I asked him in a harsh whisper, kicking him hard under the table. Mikhail inclined his head and gave Seamus a shrewd look, ignoring me completely.
“We can renegotiate our treaty, giving you more favorable terms and reduce the cut we take from your imports coming through Boston, Eastport, and Halifax,” Seamus added in an eager voice.
“You’ll also call off your beast’s manhunt for my cousin Indigo.
She is now untouchable. If anyone so much as breathes wrong in her direction, their life is forfeit,” Riordan added in.
I still glared at him, thinking of all the ways I could fuck him up for being willing to negotiate with my biggest enemy.
I was so fucking stupid to think that maybe I meant more to him than the money their alliance made them, but I guess I was wrong.
Seamus was nodding along, looking more relaxed and confident that he’d dodged a bullet.